


you don't know half of it

by orphan_account



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 22:47:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16841971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Does Ivy like Harley? Maybe a little bit. Is Ivy happy that she has to walk a drunk Harley home after the worst party ever? Not in the fucking slightest.





	you don't know half of it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starknjarvis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starknjarvis/gifts).



Does Ivy like Harley? Maybe a little bit. Is Ivy happy that she has to walk a drunk Harley home after the worst party ever? Not in the fucking slightest.

“Bite your tongue. Do you taste the blood? What’s wrong with your teeth? Do you remember what teeth feel like?” Harley rambles cheerily, slumping on Ivy’s shoulder. “What’re teeth again? Are they just big ol’ nails in your mouth? Ivy, you remember? Oh wait, it’s bone, I forgot. That’s so neat. Ivy, you ever think when you lose your teeth it’s like breaking your bones? Ivy, Ivy, Ivy–“

“What,” she hisses, doing her best to drag herself across the sidewalk with Harley hanging on.

“Nothin’,” Harley croons. “I just love sayin’ your name.”

Ivy growls and thanks every god that Harley can’t see her blush in the dark. Apparently, Harley was somehow more out of it than usual when she was drunk, which was a revelation, because Ivy couldn’t possibly have imagined that anything could make Harley more crazy than she already was. 

“You know we have school tomorrow, you’ve already missed enough class bumming around with your joke of a boyfriend as it is,” she mutters. “I don’t even know if you’re gonna graduate."

“Hey, don’t you talk about Mistah J like that,” Harley slurs, giving Ivy a murderous look before devolving into giggles. “Besides, when ya know what happens at the end of the world how can you still have patience for 9:30 in the morning?”

“A fascinating concept,” Ivy mutters. “You and Mister J can go over it in detail once he’s forgiven you getting mad that he slapped you in public.”

“Eh, it won’t take long, he’s a softie,” Harley chirps. “He seems harsh sometimes, but deep down my Puddin’s a real romantic. We’re practically Romeo and Juliet, give or take.”

Ivy snorts. “You mean you’re two stupid teens who’ve let their emotions and hormones override their sense so much they destroy everything? Tricking yourself into thinking what you’ve got is love?”

Harley gives Ivy a withering stare, and all of a sudden she almost looks perfectly sober.

“They did love each other,” she says simply, pressing her lip into a thin line. 

And Ivy sighs, because Harley’s right. They did. it’s important to know that they did. Ivy can put on the most cynical lenses possible, but she can’t deny the instant chemistry of a perfect sonnet. In a way, she just feels better with the idea that they didn’t, that it’s a play about stupid decisions and the dangers of war. Because when she forces herself to admit that Romeo and Juliet did love each other, in the coldest, most objective, most clinical sense, the whole play becomes a lot more difficult to take. It’s easier to laugh at them, Ivy wants to laugh at them, because they’re fools, and it’s easy. It’s a lot harder forcing herself to remember they did love each other. Because what do you do when you need to be sincere? To know they’re horrible and they’re in love at the same time? How do you even begin to understand that?

“Ivy. Ivyyyy.” Harley reaches up and pokes her nose. “You’re all quiet.”

“You want to know a secret?” Ivy finds herself saying without knowing why.

“Ooh, yes, always always always.”

“That’s not my real name.”

Harley gasps with exaggerated horror, except it’s Harley, so she’s probably not exaggerating. “You ain’t Ivy? Fuck, I’ve got a lot of notebooks to revise. What’s it really?”

“Pamela,” Ivy replies, wincing just from saying it. 

Harley erupts into a fit of snickering. “Pamela? Oh, man, and Mister J thinks he’s funny. Pfft. Pamela.”

“That’s not that funny.”

“No, you’re funny. Pamela. Pam. Pammy wammy.”

Ivy grimaces. “Yeah, well, you’re gonna forget this in the morning, so wear it out while you can.”

“No, I’ll remember,” Harley shakes her head, swishing her hair in Ivy’s face. Ivy spits it out. Fuck. Gross. “I’m real smart. I gotta hiiiiiighhh IQ. They test your IQ when they do the crazy test, my memory score was…it…well, it was all the way up there, you bet. Just–I’m not gonna forget any of this shit, don’t you worry."

“Sure, whatever,” Ivy says. A funny part of her kind of hopes Harley’s right. 

“I get it, though,” Harley continues. "Ivy’s better, what with your–your plant punk thing. Plant anarchist. Plantarchist.”

“Yeah,” Ivy nods. “I mean, I didn’t get combat boots and set a bulldozer on fire just to be called Pamela.”

Harley laughs again, bright and ringing clear through the empty neighborhood. It’s weird, Ivy’s heard her laugh hundreds of times for hundreds of shitty, sometimes terrifying reasons, but for some reason right now she wants to bottle the sound and play it back over and over. Harley’s laugh is–well, it sounds a lot nicer when it’s not caused by a picture of a cartoon cat with knives through its eyes. 

“See, you are funny, Pamela,” she says cheerily. "Plantmela.”

“Don’t ever say that again.”

Harley does a half-hearted salute and accidentally swats Ivy in the face. Ivy makes a noise of annoyance that makes Harley crack up even more, and she has no idea whether to be annoyed or angry or exhausted. She settles on flustered. 

“Hey. You wanna know a secret?” Harley tries and fails to whisper. “Harley ain’t my real name, either. It’s actually–okay, don’t tell, it’s–it’s actually Harleen.”

Ivy widens her eyes. And she thought Pamela was bad. “Holy fucking shit.” 

“Yeah, I know, it’s weeeird, but I didn’t mind,” Harley says. “J likes Harley better, though, so. Here I am. His little Harley Quinn.”

Ivy didn’t drink a drop all night and all of a sudden she wants to throw up. 

“How long have you been dating him?” She asks, already feeling sour about however Harley would answer. 

“There wasn’t a beginning. Do you really think beginnings exist? I doubt it. There’s no such thing. Name one beginning. You can’t, can ya? Beginning is the same as being in between is the same as being nowhere, it’s always just been Harley and Mista J, and it always will be, a million years from now ’til the earth erodes itself, eats its own tail until there’s nothin’ but dust."

Ivy rolls her eyes. That stupid nickname has her feeling sick. It’s not the only thing that has her feeling sick. 

“I know it doesn’t make sense to ya. It doesn’t make sense to me either,” Harley goes on. "It’s hard to make sense. It’s hard to know where to start with sense. I don’t think I really understand how to make sense anymore. But life ain’t good when it makes sense, ya know? There’s a space between sense and good, I think, where I am, and it’s good to be in between, choose none and ya have both for–"

She breaks off and laughs, but it sounds hollow. “Geez, I’m sorry, Ivy, I know you didn’t ask for my ramblin’.”

Ivy shrugs the best she can with Harley hanging on her arm. “It’s fine.”

“Nah, not–not just that.” Harley coughs, tags another laugh onto the end of her sentence. “Just, you know. Alla this.”

Harley waves her arms around the air, then drops them limply to her side.

“All I am is just a big problem for everyone. J was right,” she says. “First for him, now for you. Probably for Bruce, too. Fuck Bruce, though.”

“Agreed,” Ivy huffs. And fuck your shitty boyfriend too. “But don’t say any of that other shit. You’re not a problem.”

Ivy stops to consider that. “Well, you’re no problem to me."

Harley smiles sadly, stares at the ground, looks back up. “You don’t know how much of a problem I am to you, is all.”

“Well, I don’t care if you’re the worst problem I’ve ever had, I like being around you, and I’m not gonna give you shit for it, because that’s what love is,” Ivy spits out.

Harley goes silent. Suddenly, Ivy realizes that her passive-aggressive dig at J was probably–interpretable as something else.

She blushes. God, this was so fucking embarrassing. How is it possible that Harley was slumped over her drunk and she was still the embarrassed one? Although, maybe Harley is embarrassed too, because she’s awfully quiet. Ivy wishes there was a way she could tell if she was blushing without making it too obvious she was checking. Maybe she could just brush her hand across her cheeks, feel for evidence of warmth. 

Ivy could slap herself for just the thought of it. You’re not the insane one. Get it together.

“Thanks,” Harley finally murmurs, voice unreadable.

“No problem,” Ivy mutters. 

“Really. Thank you,” Harley continues. “Pamela.”

Ivy groans over the sound of Harley’s snickering. “Come on.”

Funny thing is, and Ivy will never admit it: in Harley’s mouth, her name almost sounds pleasant. Like music. She tries not to think about it. 

**Author's Note:**

> your fic is good but im shy but your fic is good!


End file.
